Former Houston legislator dies at 58

Published 6:00 pm, Saturday, February 2, 2008

Ralph Ray Wallace III, a Houston legislator who represented neighborhoods around Hobby Airport for 15 years in the Texas House, has died in Livingston. He was 58.

Wallace, a lifelong Democrat, served from 1977 to 1992. He died Friday.

During his tenure, he pushed for a Legislature that met more often than every two years and argued if lawmakers were paid living wages and had feasible office budgets, they wouldn't be so afraid to oppose special interests who donate to their campaigns.

"The Legislature is a steppingstone to something else," Wallace said in 1989. "That presents a conflict of interest. The state business is all we should be concerned with, not the next job down the line."

After retiring from the House, Wallace held various jobs, even driving a tractor-trailer rig for a while, said his sister, Kathy Wallace Hunt.

Wallace died at Hunt's home, where he had lived for the past decade. He had been in ill health from accidents he suffered while working as a truck driver, Hunt said. She said the cause of his death was unknown.

Wallace's interest in politics began when he started the Texas Teen Democratic Party. He received a bachelor of science degree from Southwestern University in Georgetown. He was in his late 20s when he joined the House in 1977 and became the youngest lawmaker to head a committee when he was appointed chairman of a special committee on child abuse.

Cochran Funeral Home in Livingston was handling the funeral arrangements. The funeral home's office manager told The Associated Press on Sunday that funeral plans had not yet been set, but that the family was set to discuss them on Monday with the funeral home.

Hunt said Wallace would be buried at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.